[desktop-discuss] Re: [appliances-discuss] Re: Article idea "Getting Small"?

[Bart Smaalders]

Gary A. Ross wrote:

> The possibility of developing "utility" servers, and having the software 
> and data be mounted to it, makes the environment much easier to 
> administer. It takes the thin concept, one level up, from the client to 
> the server.
> 

Today, all of the gnome binaries & libraries are can be mounted 
read-only.  This environment does rely on a writable home directory,
but that's generally needed for persistent storage of documents,
anyway.

I agree that with the costs of CPUs dropping very quickly and network
performance increasing steadily, a diskless local cpu makes a lot of
sense.  I use a Gbit network in my house; my kids can access our file
server (running Solaris, ZFS and Samba) with higher bandwidth
than they can often get from their local disk drives.

The real reason for putting the CPU next to the user is to take
advantage of the great cpu<>screen bandwidth.  With adequate
network resources, a local diskless machine is very feasible
indeed.

- Bart



Bart Smaalders			Solaris Kernel Performance
barts at cyber.eng.sun.com		http://blogs.sun.com/barts